PH Blog: putting the hype into hypercars
Given what else is coming Harris reckons Jag was right to can the C-X75, pocket the PR boost and move on
The only problem being: Jaguar was never going to build the C-X75.
This was a car in the great tradition of the motor show special - the F-Type was not yet ready to be shown, the remainder of the range was using Zimmer frames, so Jag knocked out a supercar to keep the troops interested, albeit one of the best looking, most exciting sounding supercars (in terms of specification) of modern times. That it is a shame we shall never see a C-X75 on the road is not in doubt. That people genuinely thought it would make production must warm the cockles of every conman's heart.
The positive fall-out from this announcement is that it forces us to scrutinise the new generation of hybrid hypercars. 2014 will potentially see three of them launched: the McLaren P1, the new Enzo and the 918 Spyder. Even if it had planned to build the C-X75, I honestly think Jaguar would be making the correct decision to can the project just reading the names of those three products. I mean - who is going to buy all of these cars? The stock answer to that question in the year 2012 is 'The Chinese' but sadly those Chinese who can afford such toys still have more interest in being driven in very large, comfortable cars than scratching about in racing slippers.
Bang in the middle of the worst global recession in generations, perhaps ever, the car industry is about to produce a surplus of £1m hypercars. You have to admire the sheer chutzpah, no?
What makes this emerging class of hybrid performance machines so risky is they do not mark a continuation from a previous generation of products in the way F50 followed F40. They are completely new standalone machines espousing new technologies designed to preface the next stage of fast motoring. They will do things their predecessors could not do - the problem being that those new tricks might not correlate with the requirements of the potential owner. Slipping silently away from rest in a 918 Spyder is a very, very cool trick, but one I suspect will wear thin in the face of all that extra mass and the realisation that, in performance terms, the 918 will not hold a huge advantage over a Carrera GT.
People currently buy hypercars for the theatre and hyperbole. They want numbers to quote, noise to make and body panels to be gloated over. In many respects it is the simplest area of the marketplace, and now it is being complicated and re-categorised into something new. We'll need to drive these new cars next year to decide whether the new technologies smother the essential lunacy of a hypercar. Right now I remain a little suspicious but, as ever, willing and hopeful of being proved wrong.
Listing these complications and conundrums, it seems Jaguar has made the correct decision to avoid this million euro dust-up. Well, it would have - if it had ever intended to build the thing in the first place. Which it didn't.
Chris
I'm afraid Mr Chris Harris is firmly co-opted into the spin for JLR camp, with this rather shameful article. Shameful in that one would expect far more objectivity from Mr Harris.
The article reads remarkably like the same "Operation Damage Limitation from C-X75 cancellation" piece from Mr Steve Davies of Skiddmark.com, posted last night, which again sought to portray, let's be blunt, blatantly spin for Jaguar this story:
One could say Chris's piece reads like the tabloid version of Steve Davies' rather pompous, longwinded 'broadsheet' version, but both are aimed at spinning this patently negative story into a positive for Team Jag/JLR.
The truth is as you suggest, '585bhp', this was a live project, not simply a PR exercise from the beginning.
Did anyone else notice that JLR's press office re-issued an old story about some vague, far off plans for building some indeterminate model in Arabia at the same time the story of the C-X75 cancellation came out? The mainstream media even headlined national bulletins with the 'good news' of JLR's Arabian [fairy)Tales, helpfully burying the more telling and immediate story of Jaguar's inabilty to concoct a hypercar competitor, aginst the likes of the 918 and new Enzo. This tawdry spinning is reminiscent of the worst of Mandelson's New Labour exploits.
As to Mr Harris's worst-ever global recession. He's right - for the 99%. For the one-percenters and much more so for the one-percent of the one-percent, their wealth has grown in mushroom fashion since the 'Credit Crunch' of 2007/8, post Bear Stearns collapse in 2007 and Lehmans' in 2008.
To say Jag pulled the plug because the market is too tight, or simply not there for these ~$1m cars is disingenous at best, deliberately deceiving at worst. Central London property, fine wines, art, vintage cars, etc., etc., have all gained massively in value since the Plebs have undergone Austerity for the last four to five years. Croesus would be a pauper in the terms of the 0.01% in 2012/13.
To say the market isn't there is therefore ridiculous. The 918 and new Enzo will be huge, oversubscribed sell-outs. The one thing we know for sure won't be there is an offering in this segment from JLR.
Sorry, Chris, expected far better.
As long as we are able to produce petrol powered cars, those who make the ultimate versions should focus on making them memorable for what they are - the run out icons of an era that will ultimately be lost. Save the greenery experiments for the rest of the range and exploit the knowledge to serve the needs of the majority!
http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/jaguar-... - 31 Aug 2012
http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/all-new... - 11 Dec 2012
However I do also agree that I find the idea of a hybrid hypercar confusing at best and downright stupid at worst as I really don't understand who this car is aimed at. So the buyer of these cars is someone who has just built his 20th oil\gas factory (tearing down an orphanage in the process) who thinks nothing of dropping £1m on a car but who will then be worried about mpg, running costs, road tax or suddenly have an attack of conscience that their £1m TOY is somehow harming the planet.....riiigghhhhtt!
In terms of preference, it's just that. You forget that you're a petrolhead, posting on a forum full of other petrolheads. I would imagine that a large portion of the super rich aren't petrolheads. But what I imagine would be important to them is status and buying excellence.
If you have the money, you buy the best thing out there (or what's perceived to be the best thing out there) as you hope that the experts who make these things, know their sh*t.
These cars have to shout out loud what is the cutting edge tech the R&D these companies are doing and that no other car in the range/world etc. has got. This is what the buyers for these cars want. REAL exclusivity. Something no-one else has ever had. You don't want to be spending a cool seven figures on something that doesn't move the game on, something that can be knocked up from the cumulative components of a 'lesser' model, even if said model is the best thing on 4 wheels. Different product for largely a very different buyer. The reason why the big 3 have actually put them into production is that 1- they can afford to, 2- they have buyers for the cars, 3- the tech will trickle down to subsequent models, 4- these brands need this type of market exposure to add polish and substance to their sporting and technical heritage their other ranges can benefit from. Jag doesn't have any of those covered.
Jag did the right thing. Come with an exceptional concept, with some (almost realistic!) substance to the tech sheet. They maximised the PR and column inches, kept the brand on the boil and reasserted their sporting intentions. No such thing as bad publicity. There was no way it was ever going to be put into production, but none the less it was worth the R&D and design study and before the new batch of hyper-car announcements Jag stole a march in the vacuum of 'free' press.
Nothing wrong with what they did and filled the brief of a concept car perfectly.
The world's elite have to sell the AGW lie to the Plebs. What better way than build contrivances only the elites can afford whilst "saving the world" from the mortal danger of, er, CO2. Parky again today.
that not to mention that all these cars still feature a pretty potent petrol engine so you've still got the fire and the fury when you want it
Plus another 400bhp of electric to go with your 500Bhp petrol ( as was CX75) not only that it'll extend the range for when you're pootling through town
Sorry chaps Hybrids are the future ans as ever the Future tech gets wheeled out for the top of the line models before filtering down
so same as it ever was
so I think it shame the CX 75 wasn't built
But, Porsche has been actively courting its own loyalists with the 918 and people inside the Porsche world know that they are far from selling out of the car because the technology and price just aren't doing it for their target customers. Jaguar clearly looked at the Porsche experience (and the other less technologically complex £1m + cars coming out), remembered the XJ220 fiasco, looked at the very marginal profitability of actually selling some CX-75s (as opposed to making a few and getting 90% of the PR/brand benefit) and pulled the plug. I imagine those people working full time on the project at JLR and Williams are very disappointed it hasn't worked commercially and even more disappointed that their efforts for the past couple of years have been rubbished by journalists and enthusiasts as PR fluff when it was a very real project that people fought hard for within the business.
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff